Resort raises the bar for sustainable solar energy
31 July 2024
News
Sun City is going to great heights in its bid to one day take the resort completely off the grid. With all available space on the roof of Sun Central now covered by solar panels, the resort lifted its sights to the roof at The Palace, and the Sun City hotel.
Brett Hoppé, GM of Sun City said, “Conventional installation methods such as cranes would have inconvenienced our guests, so given the scale of the project, we decided that airlifting the equipment was the best and quickest solution. At its highest point, The Palace is 70 m high, so lifting 1193 solar panels and the supporting steel structures onto the roof is no mean feat. The hefty panels were packed into crates, with each one weighing just under a ton.”
Hoppé emphasised that the roll out of the panels forms part of a broader, phased environmental strategy that will, in the future, take the resort off the grid. “Sun City is an enormous property with many moving parts to power up, but we believe our ground-breaking project not only reduces our resort’s demand and consumption of energy, but that it will also meet Sun International’s broader environmental commitment.”
“Our sustainability promise is based on people, planet and profits, in that order. Solar is beneficial to our broader community, as the less power we draw from the grid the more is available to others, it works for our guests – especially those travelling from overseas – as they want to know that they are not increasing their own environmental footprint when they stay at Sun City, and it works for our own bottom line. Since June last year we have completed the first two phases of the project and have already realised a financial saving of approximately R3,1-million.”
The installation has been planned in several phases. When this particular phase is completed, demand from the resort on the national grid will drop by an estimated total of 2,3 MW.
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